They even come with a special Utena glass to pour your drink into.
In Japan, the legal drinking age is 20. So if groundbreaking anime franchise Revolutionary Girl Utena, which marked 20 years since its TV broadcast finale last December, were a person, it’d now be old enough to enjoy adult beverages.
And so merchandiser Premium Bandai is ready to pour Utena a drink with the release of not one, but two alcoholic drinks saluting the series’ double-decade milestone.
Roses are a popular motif in many shojo anime and manga franchises, but the flowers are particularly prominent in Utena. In recognition, the Revolutionary Girl Utena 20th Anniversary liqueur is made with rose petals sourced from Nagano Prefecture’s Nakano, one of Japan’s top rose-growing regions, imparting the five-percent alcohol mixture with a delicate pink shade.
Bundled with the 300-mililiter (10.1-ounce) bottle of rose liqueur is a drinking glass bearing the silhouette of titular series lead Utena and love interest Anthy on one side, and the Utena logo on the other.
The liqueur/glass set is priced at 9,800 yen (US$88), but if you’re looking for something even more upscale, there’s also a bottle of Revolutionary Girl Utena 20th Anniversary wine.
And when we say “a” bottle, that’s meant literally, as only a single bottle is being produced by France’s Chateau Coutet. Made with prized Sémillon grapes, the wine has a golden color, aroma with scents of tropical fruit and honey, and custard cream and toasted bread notes in its flavor profile.
Like the liqueur, the wine also comes with the Utena glass (although in each case its odd that only one glass is included, given the importance of interpersonal bonds as theme in the series). Due to its scarcity, though, the wine/glass set is priced at 200,000 yen (US$1,785), so you’ll have to ask yourself if it’s worth as much as five bottles of Final Fantasy whiskey (and some change).
Premium Bandai is taking orders for the liqueur here through its website, with delivery scheduled for May. Fans with pockets as deep as their devotion to Utena can apply to purchase the wine here, with the randomly selected purchase rights-holder to be notified on January 31.
Source: Premium Bandai (1, 2)
Top image: Premium Bandai
Insert images: Premium Bandai (1, 2)
Follow Casey on Twitter, where sometimes he gets fancy and buys himself a 450-yen Japanese microbrew at the grocery store.
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